D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[Oofta]

I already covered the meat of this post above, but this warranted its own response.

I, and others, bring it into the conversation because you, and others, keep insisting that rules do nothing. That, because they cannot offer ironclad, flawless guarantees of no had behavior ever—IIRC, you have repeatedly used phrases to the effect of "because rules cannot make virtuous men," probably not in those exact words but close enough—it is therefore completely pointless to even try to make better rules or do anything whatsoever to address real issues actual people have.

Dungeon World shows that rules can, as I have said, help address problems. It would be foolish to simply copy it precisely for exactly the same reason that, say, copying the US/Canada Air Quality agreement in order to tackle climate change would be incredibly foolish. The details, legal, social, and scientific, are much too important to simply copy-paste a previous treaty and call it a day. You need to build something new for it to have any chance. But what the US/Canada agreement shows is that we CAN fix climate problems with properly-enforced treaties and laws. Acid rain was a huge concern even when I was a child. Nowadays, at least in North America and Europe? You never hear about it because we fixed the problem. There are still some lingering environmental issues that we'll have to solve because acid doesn't just disappear once it has rained down. But the treaty shows that we CAN successfully solve climate problems we're causing if we actually work for it.

Same for DW, and any other non-D&D rules anyone might bring up. They show that no, this isn't just pie-in-the-sky, white room, pipe-dream theory. It actually works, in real games played by real people. D&D can learn from this, and build its own tools to achieve that end. Those tools will be different in details and execution, but extremelu similar in concept and style, because Dungeon World is conceptually and stylistically modelled after D&D in the first place.

I've never said rules do nothing. I've said that I don't see how rules would change a killer DM in D&D and make them a better DM. I'm still not convinced they'd always change anything in DW because the GM could just crank the hard moves up to 11 if they wanted to "teach the players a lesson". The DM, knowing the characters, could set up a series of moves that they are likely to fail. When they fail the hard move is that rocks fall and they die. Or take 50 points of damage, assuming that's enough to kill them. It wouldn't be a good thing to do. It may not even be legal. I'm assuming it would get pushback from the players. But the same thing is going to happen in D&D - set up a no-win scenario with no way out to guarantee a TPK and the players are not going to be happy. Throw a CR 20 monster at a level 1 party and they have every right to complain. If you're the OP, you don't care.

But the rules in DW shows ... what exactly that applies to D&D? I can also show that an apple is different from an orange. The way DW works is so different as to not matter. If you can come up with some sort of rules that would help D&D, since this is a D&D forum on a D&D thread I'm all ears. But talking about how DW handles balance? Might as well talk about the rules of baseball because it would be about as useful. Which is why I was so confused for so long because I kept thinking there was a "there" there. If there is, I can't find it.

I'm not saying you are literally telling people "My favored game is better." But since it has so little relevance, that's what it seems like.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The designers explicitly said that that's what it is. I no longer have the original source I would have quoted, where they expressly said that Dungeon World was built to capture the way they remember playing D&D in the days of 1e and Basic. But we need look no further than the Influences in Appendix 1 of the book:


Dungeon World is very intentionally D&D through the lens of PbtA.

I don't doubt it, but in my opinion, the PbtA lens distorts the picture so much it's practically unrecognizable.

 

[Faolyn]

Sure; but I can't provide much entertainment in return. And I'm there to entertain others as well as be entertained by them.

Fair enough. Although I know I wouldn't be happy if the GM didn't seem excited by what was going on, or considered complete neutrality to be "perfect."

It's good that you get excited for your players. Don't think that's not the ideal.

 

[Micah Sweet]

All right, I gotta ask: why is this "perfect" for you? I mean, if you want to have no emotion around their success or failure, why even play the game? What would you even get out of it?

Because this...


Sounds like someone who is actually having fun, which IMO is the entire point of playing a role-playing game.

The fun is watching and adjudicating a group of players navigate and experience the world you created, not cheering for their success and lamenting their failure.

 

[Lanefan]

The most radical contrasts with D&D, as typically played are these: (i) the GM can only make a hard move in the situations I've described; the GM has no licence to make a hard move because that's what would follow from the logic of their as-yet-unrevealed prep; (ii) the GM is not permitted to narrate fiction which is not either a hard move (some sort of immediate, irrevocable crisis or climax) or a soft move (some sort of contribution to the rising action). In other words, "nothing happens" is not a legitimate move for a DW or AW GM.

This last is suspect in a follow-the-fiction sense, in that oftentimes "nothing happens" would be a quite logical in-fiction outcome.

I try to open a stuck door and fail, nothing happens. I say I'm giving my contact an hour to appear and then leaving, nothing happens during that hour so I leave. I speak to a statue, nothing happens. I'm running surveillance for the day but I fail because my target never appears, so nothing happens.

Also, as I posted earlier, there's the element of timing. Nothing happens now might not necessarily mean nothing happens ever; only the thing that happens doesn't happen right now.

 

[Faolyn]

I don't doubt it, but in my opinion, the PbtA lens distorts the picture so much it's practically unrecognizable.

Have you played it?

I mean, I haven't. But I've skimmed through the book and it definitely feels like D&D to me. Just without relying on D&D's often excessive crunch.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yet being the key word there. But pretty soon you will be out of a job. Program in your GM notes and let the AI do the rest of the work.


(1) Water isn't wet, and (2) I don't think that noting that the GM controls all the fiction really groks what "begin and end with the fiction" means.


I don't think that it's so much that "my favored game is better" as it is "here is how this other game deals with this problem" or "here is how this other game has helped me improve how I would approach this in D&D."


Who said that? I don't think that's true at all nor do I believe that you have demonstrated that some of the ideas from DW are incompatible with D&D. Saying that some ideas are incompatible with your prefered playstyle with D&D is not the same as saying that those ideas are necessarily incompatible with D&D. There are many people, myself included, who have incorporated ideas to D&D, including, for example, that D&D 5e lead designer Mike Mearls had this to say:



Likewise, SlyFlourish (the Lazy DM), who writes books for DMs in 5e D&D, has also been inspired by and utilized ideas from Dungeon World as well.

So I'm not sure what to tell you other than I guess that the ideas from Dungeon World are not nearly as incompatible or non-applicable to D&D as you maybe would like to imagine.

I can't speak for @Oofta , but the ideas are pretty incompatible with how I want to play to D&D.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But again, why bother to play, then? You can be entertained by watching someone else's game, like on YouTube.

Worldbuilding.

 

[bloodtide]

So, would you ever think to not do the thing that makes someone sick, simply out of the kindness of your heart? Or do you automatically see any request as a command?

Well, sure I might do a reasonable request. But to ask me not to eat what I want is not reasonable. And remember, you did prove it unreasonable as you would never, ever consider doing it on the other side.

So, you don't believe in taking turns, accommodating others, general decency, etc? Because you know what? All of the changes my friends and I made to accommodate others? Not a single one was forced upon us. We chose to be kind and accepting to each other.

Sure I believe in "turns" in general. In reality, I do go around them as part of my life. I shop at stores at odd hours to avoid annoying crowds, for example. And when I must go to Wal Mart on hours, I use the 'secret' checkout over in the home and garden center.

Though, only for the ones chose to make accommodations that are agred with: as soon as someone does not agree they choose to do so.

How is "don't include mutilated babies" requiring you to change everything? Seriously, there's so much potential horror in a borg cube. I can think of a dozen things right away due to my love of Giger-esque body horror, that don't require doing something that a very large number of people find very distressing.

Look Baby Borg are in the TV show. In the TV show = in the TV show RPG. My wife has a cute little stuffed toy baby borg right next to her baby Yoda. They have baby borg onesies for babies. So maybe not so many people find it distressing?

And yes, why wouldn't medical reasons agree with what they're asking? You seem shocked that someone would say "I can't eat this food because I have that medical condition"? Why is that?

My shock comes from more of the two step. At first the person would be like "oh I don't like that, so I won't eat it". Then after I give my reply they suddenly mention the medical part. It's just odd that is not the first thing said.

Well, yes, if I had a piece of art on my wall that actually was causing literal distress, then sure. Unless it was taped to the wall or something and couldn't be removed without damaging it or the wall, why not? It's easy enough to do.

But I have a feeling that this guy isn't suffering actual distress from the poster. Let me guess--you're one of those people who unironically insist that The Empire Was Right and he's trying to point out that maybe people who use planet-destroying weapons aren't actually the good guys, and you're mistaking that for "making a big deal."

I find life easier to not let the world nit pick everything I own.

You have to be a troll. I can't imagine how you could have 3-4 regular groups for as long as you claim with your attitude.

I run a great game. Many people I game with don't agree with me 100% on everything, but they want to have a good fun time playing a RPG, so we do.

The fun is watching and adjudicating a group of players navigate and experience the world you created, not cheering for their success and lamenting their failure.

Agreed. Though I will always say "The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat'".

 

[Oofta]

You complained about DW being mentioned without being explained, and asked someone to explain how it would help. I then did so. And now you complain that I posted the explanation you asked for!

I'm not complaining about an explanation of the rules. I appreciate it. That doesn't mean I see how it applies to D&D.

You've had a few replies. Here's mine.

DW, like its parent AW, takes for granted that RPGing is a conversation. The participants say things, and in the process of, and as a result of, saying those things, they create a shared fiction. That shared fiction concerns the fantasy adventures of some D&D-style protagonists.

DW, like its parent AW, sets out a procedure for that conversation to follow: it's not free-form. As @hawkeyefan posted not a long way upthread, it specifies certain "triggers" for whose job it is to say what.

The most common thing for a player (cf GM) to say is what it is that their character does. When they say that, either it will trigger a player-side move, or it will not. The list of player-side moves is finite, and each states a trigger, which (with one or two exceptions that can be ignored for present purposes) takes the form of a description of an action in the fiction, like when you take aim and shoot at an enemy in range (in DW, this triggers the player-side move Volley). If a player-side move is triggered, the dice must be rolled (because of the rule "if you do it, you do it") and depending on the result (after modifiers), either the player or the GM (sometimes both) are instructed to add something further to the conversation (eg one possible result for Volley is that "You have to move to get the shot placing you in danger as described by the GM" - so the player describes "I move to get in my shot" and the GM describes the resulting danger, drawing on the established elements of the shared fiction (as per the earlier conversation), plus whatever other ideas they might have, to do so).

If the result of the roll for a player-side move is 6 or less, then the GM gets to make as hard a move as they like. More on this shortly.

If a player describes their PC doing something that does not trigger a player-side move, then the rule is that the GM "makes a move", that is, says something in the contribution. This should be a soft move, unless the player is handing the GM a golden opportunity to follow through on a threat that has already been established in the shared fiction (as a result of an earlier move).

Sometimes, in play, the players don't describe their PCs doing things, but rather look to the GM to get a sense of what is going on around them, or to get some framing, or just because they're not sure what happens next. When this happens, the GM "makes a move". Just as mentioned in the previous paragraph, this should be a soft move unless the players are handing the GM a golden opportunity to follow through on an earlier move.

When the GM makes a soft move, this means describing something in the fiction that increases the risk, or threat, or apprehension, or stakes - to speak in general terms, it contributes to the rising action. But a soft move does not foreclose the current aspiration the player has for their PC in the fictional situation. By way of contrast, a hard move consists in the GM describing something that does, in some fashion or to some extent, foreclose in that way. In other words, a hard move is immediate and irrevocable in its effect. The most generic example of a hard move is dealing damage, but obviously in many situations other, perhaps more interesting, hard moves will be possible.

The basic sequence of play that results from these rules is this: there is rising action, as the players describe their PCs doing things that do not trigger player-side moves, and the GM responds with soft moves. Then a player has their PC do something that triggers a player-side move; or, perhaps a player has their PC do something that hands the GM an opportunity. In the latter case, the rising action resolves into some sort of crisis or climax (as the GM makes a hard move). In the former case, depending on the result of the dice roll, the same may be true; or, perhaps, the result of the dice roll is another soft move (eg as per the example of Volley above, the GM describes the PC moving into a new sort of danger); or, perhaps the result of the dice roll is some sort of victory for the PC (eg in dealing their damage as a result of Volley, they kill their enemy, just ending the threat they are facing).

The most radical contrasts with D&D, as typically played are these: (i) the GM can only make a hard move in the situations I've described; the GM has no licence to make a hard move because that's what would follow from the logic of their as-yet-unrevealed prep; (ii) the GM is not permitted to narrate fiction which is not either a hard move (some sort of immediate, irrevocable crisis or climax) or a soft move (some sort of contribution to the rising action). In other words, "nothing happens" is not a legitimate move for a DW or AW GM.

Which to me, means the PCs could never be attacked without them somehow triggering it, right? The game revolves around the character moves. The fronts never move independently? Because if they did you could have @Lanefan's sniper scenario.

If we then think about the OP scenario through the lens of the approach I've just described - as both @AbdulAlhazred and @hawkeyefan have done, upthread - we can see straight away that the dynamic of play would be very different. For instance, when the NPCs accuse the PCs of having committed a crime, and the players look to the GM to see what happens next, the GM would make a soft move, not the hard move of them being captured and jailed (@hawkeyefan noted this already). And suppose the PCs are in jail, and the players look to the GM to see what happens next, the GM would make a soft move - there would be none of the faffing around with the escape attempt that has no grounding in or connection to some trajectory of fiction established by the GM. Given the nature of the prep in this case, the obvious soft move as soon as the PCs are noted as being in jail would be the arrival of the mysterious stranger (which I think @AbdulAlhazred noted already). And when the PCs successfully killed the guard so as to leave no witnesses, the next GM move would be a soft one - eg "You can hear cries of alarm behind you - it seems that someone has found the body" - rather than what seems to have been a very hard one of having the PCs surrounded by guards. Etc.

The events described by the OP unfold through a series of GM hard moves and relatively few soft moves, so that instead of a rising action and the tension of false accusations, arrest and jail break the upshot is a series of faits accompli, mostly GM-dictated, which end up with the killing of all the guards that the OP complained about.

So I just asked this, but what limits hard moves? What stops the GM from a rocks fall everyone (or at least the character that triggered it) dies move?

What I notice about these examples is that they emphasise the pre-eminence of the GM's conception of the fiction, and the GM's authorship of fictional elements to drive play - the rescue by the valkyrie, the GM's image of the jail and the legal system, the GM's view of whether or not the PCs have any chance of escape.

The contrast with DW is therefore quite clear. DW emphasises the GM's role in either contributing to the rising action (soft moves) or - in the circumstances that the rules dictate - contributing to crisis or climax (hard moves). When making those contributions, the GM will naturally draw on ideas about jails, and legal systems, and NPCs, but in aid of performing their job in the conversation as dictated by the rules of the game.

That is why the rules of DW would make a difference. Which answers the question you asked upthread.

But I still don't see how any of that applies to D&D or the thread subject. Maybe I'm dense. Some things from DW are similar to D&D (and virtually all RPGs I assume) like Fronts. The DMG talks about the same concepts, just in different words. It's hardly a unique concept, it's just packaged differently. But soft moves and hard moves? I just don't see how it translates.